Hello and welcome back to my blog! I have been so very busy the past few months (you probably noticed I posted a lot less often here), a lot of things going on, one of them – I finally went to driving school and got my driver’s license. I’m about to turn 33 and I never learned how to drive before that. I got my license about 2 weeks ago before my trip to Germany to Creativeworld and just the other day I drove my car all by myself. What a feeling it was! Feeling of freedom. I admit I was nervous, but everything went really well. It was cold and rainy on that day, I drove okay on the slippery road and also drove after the sun has set, in the dark. I drove to the city center with moderate traffic. All good. I’m so proud of myself and just wanted to share this achievement with you. Thank you for hanging in with me while I took this time to learn this important skill.
Anyhow, today I have several Valentine’s Day cards to share featuring some gorgeous stamps from Pretty Pink Posh. I love the look of heat embossing on my cards, it instantly adds a ton of elegance to my projects and wow!
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VIDEO TUTORIAL
As always, I filmed a video tutorial showing how to create this project from start to finish. I’m hoping you’ll enjoy it. Watch it below or on my Youtube channel.
Like this video? Please give it a big thumbs up (you can do this on Youtube video page right under the video) and share with a crafty friend! Leave me a comment too, I love hearing from you!
CARDS DETAILS
Recently, as you know, I’ve also become fond of foiling. I’m able to easily take my handmade projects to a new level with the help of foil. In this blog post & video, I’ll show you how to combine these 2 techniques to create easy to make Valentine’s Day cards. Of course, you can apply this to any other occasion cards or even other projects, not only card making.
I started working on my cards by doing hot foiling first. This is very easy to do with the new Glimmer Hot Foil System by Spellbinders. It’s a new tool that basically is an add on to your die cutting machine (it doesn’t work with every die cutting machine, see compatibility chart here). This tool allows you to add foiled effects to your handmade cards with the help of dies. Pretty cool, right?
I foiled the heart outline using the coordinating die from my Floral Heart stamp set from Pretty Pink Posh on several pieces of colored cardstock (I’m using cardstock from Hero Arts – I just love that paper!) using with gold foil. My plan for these cards was heat emboss the heart image inside the foiled outline for some extra wow.
I used gold & white detail embossing powder as well as heart outline image & the inner smaller heart stamp along with the outline for my cards today. To help me position everything and heat emboss perfectly inside the foiled outline I used my mini MISTI stamping tool.
If you want to recreate these cards be sure to do your foiling first and heat embossing later. First of all, you won’t be able to align the foiled outline around the heat embossed stamped image, it’s much easier to align the stamping inside the foiling; and second, the Glimmer machine applies heat and that heat can potentially mess up all of your heat embossing.
I used a combination of colored pencils (Polychromos by Faber Castell) and white pen to color the hearts. The white pen coloring was very similar to the one I featured here.
To add interest to some of my cards & panels I added some selective manual scoring to the background. It’s a very simple technique that allows you to add some nice texture to the background of the card. It’s not the easiest thing to do, as it can be hard and tiring on the wrist to add all of these score lines, but it does look really nice on the finished card.
I used jewels from Valentine’s Day mix to embellish my cards and also added some die-cut branches using just the coordinating dies from the Autumn Blooms set.
I think these cards turned out really beautiful. I hope you like them! Have fun stamping!
SUPPLIES
I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!
 Pretty Pink Posh Floral Hearts Clear Stamps Shop at: SSS | PPP |
 Pretty Pink Posh Floral Hearts Coordinating Dies Shop at: SSS | PPP |
 Pretty Pink Posh Autumn Blooms Die Set Shop at: SSS | PPP |
 Pretty Pink Posh Valentine Jewels Mix Shop at: SSS | PPP |
 Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil System Shop at: SSS | SC | SB | AZ |
 Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil Gold Shop at: SC | SB |
 Spellbinders Platinum Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS | SC | SB | AZ |
 Neenah 110 Lb Solar White Cardstock Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Hero Arts White Detail Embossing Powder Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ |
 Hero Arts Heat Embossing Gun Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ |
 Hero Arts Gold Embossing Powder PW100 Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos 12 Set Shop at: SSS | AZ | BL |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos 36 Set Shop at: SSS | AZ | BL |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos Colored Pencils Shop at: BL |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos 24 Set Shop at: AZ | BL |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos 60 Set Shop at: AZ | BL |
 Faber-Castell Polychromos 120 Set Shop at: AZ | BL |
 Versamark Watermark Emboss Ink Pad Shop at: SSS | HA | AZ |
 Scor-Pal Mini Scor-Buddy Scoring Board Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Simon Says Stamp Small Teflon Bone Folder Tool Shop at: SSS |
 EK Success Powder Tool Applicator Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ |
 Mini Misti Stamping Tool Shop at: SSS | SC | HA | AZ |
 Tonic Studios 8.5 Inch Paper Trimmer Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ | TS |
 White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Sakura Classic White Bold Line 10 Pen Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Sakura Classic White Gelly Roll Pens Set of 3 Shop at: SSS |
 White Foam Squares Shop at: SSS | SC | SB | AZ |
 Tonic Deluxe Adhesive Nuvo Glue Shop at: SSS | SC | AZ | TS |
 Crystal Ninja Crystal Katana Pick Up Tool Shop at: SSS | AZ |
 Scor-Tape 1/8 Inch Crafting Tape Shop at: SSS | AZ |
Simply gorgeous cards Yana.The dark pink is my most favorite.
CONGRATULATIONS on getting your license and getting out there and exploring in the car!!!! I can relate — having a car and being able to go whenever/wherever equals freedom to me too!! Certainly sounds like you’ve been a busy gal!! Pretty cards! I really like the sort of quilted embossed background. Thanks, Yana and enjoy your new found freedom!! Drive carefully!!!!!!!
Really Beautiful cards!!!
Congratulations, Yana, on passing your driving test. It is very liberating being able to drive. I’ll pass on some advice from my dad…”treat everyone on the road as a potential maniac”. Believe it or not, it really does help with spacial awareness, lol. Have lots of fun driving…Ohm the places you can go!
Now, your video – brilliant, ad beautiful cards. Thank you, for all the fabulous tips…I will give my glimmer machine another try now. 🙂
I used my glimmer hot foil machine on top of my spellbinders mat as in the video. My mat warped.
WOW Yana, Congrats on getting your licence to offically drive your car. I was 48 almost 49 when I got mine, now 50. I too am improving each day and drive myself to and from work mainly. I’ve not ventured onto our main highways…scary!
Love watching you craft, you are very inspiring.
All the best for your new found freedom and stay safe on the roads.